


Extraction

by codswallop



Series: Triptych [3]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, First Kiss, M/M, Toothache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2008623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It finally took a toothache to change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extraction

**Author's Note:**

> For the "toothache" square in hc_bingo - and to finally, belatedly, complete the trio of short Lewis/Hathaway fics I began two summers ago, beginning with "Ginger Up" and "Hands On."
> 
> This one is much less explicit than the others, but also less unrequited, so there's that.

The holiday had done him no good at all. 

Lewis had managed not to think about James much while he’d been away. A momentary lapse of sanity, he’d decided. Too many long hours. And then he walked back into his office, and James glanced up at him with a distracted frown that turned instantly to a mild, pleased smile, and he was lost. Who’d have ever thought it--at his age, this, now? He had to stand very still while it all washed over him in waves: the hopelessness of it, the ridiculousness, the stupid unreasoning joy of new desire.

Hathaway rifled through the standing file on his desk, his fingers flicking slowly and deliberately through the papers as though he might find what he was seeking by feel. Lewis had to look away. “Ah, here you are,” Hathaway said, selecting one, drawing it out, and sliding it across the desk. “This may interest you, sir. Ready to leap back into the fray?”

He could always, perhaps, take that early retirement after all, Lewis thought helplessly.

*

For the next few careful weeks, Lewis taught his eyes not to wander and his heart not to hope. It was good, he told himself, to know that he _could_ desire someone again. Just the wrong someone this time. 

If he ever noticed James looking at him in a speculative sort of way, in quiet moments, he didn’t allow himself to wonder about it. 

*

It finally took a toothache to change everything.

“How’d it go?” James asked, standing swiftly to attention as Lewis re-emerged into the dentist’s waiting area, gauze-packed and bloodied. “Right, don’t bother answering that, sir--let’s get you home.” He took Lewis by the elbow and steered him carefully toward the door.

Lewis wasn’t entirely shocked that he’d stayed, he found. He couldn’t decide whether he loved or hated the thought of Hathaway slouching sentry in the waiting room while he’d been laid out helpless a few feet away, having horrible things done to him. He must look an absolute sight. 

James swerved, trying to drive while casting worried looks over at the passenger seat. “Stop that,” Lewis told him, muffled by the gauze. “Eyes on the road.” 

He’d been given painkillers to take, had swallowed the first dose while still in the chair, and they were making him muzzy already. Too muzzy to object (he reasoned) when James insisted on accompanying him into the flat. He did shake off the offer of an arm to lean on, though. “I’m not entirely feeble,” he snapped. “It’s my mouth that hurts; I can walk on me own. Don’t fuss.”

Inside, James fussed. Lewis ignored him. He lay on the sofa while James read the care instructions he’d been given, brought him a pillow, checked the kitchen to see that he had soft foods to eat. “There isn’t much,” he called back to Lewis. “I could mash some potato for you. Or boil a bit of pasta--that doesn’t take much chewing.”

Lewis frowned dizzily at his watch. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning!”

“I meant for later. Or I could bring by some soup?”

Lewis didn’t bother answering. He dozed off a bit, in fact--he hadn’t slept much the night before-- only to be woken minutes later by a cold touch against his jaw.

“Ice pack,” Hathaway said. He’d found one of the gel packs in Lewis’s freezer, and wrapped it in a clean tea towel. Lewis pressed it against his face with a grateful sigh. The Novocain was wearing off, and the whole right side of his jaw had begun to throb hotly.

“Ah,” said Lewis. “Ow,” and Hathaway was leaning over him suddenly, inches away.

“All right, sir?” he asked, studying Lewis with a strange look on his face, half concern and half...amusement? Fondness? 

Lewis reached up, as if to push him away, but his hand brushed James’s face instead, and James shut his eyes and leaned into the touch slightly, and from there…

He couldn’t say, later on, how it happened. Neither of them could. But it was a heady mix of sensation he’d remember for the rest of his days: pain/pleasure/pain, cold/hot/cold, terror and elation, his jaw throbbing and his heart racing as they kissed, very carefully, for the first time. 

James pulled away slowly. Lewis couldn’t look at him; couldn’t look away. He looked---Lewis thought he might stop breathing--solemn, reverent, and utterly delighted.

“Did you _know_?” Lewis asked him, still a bit incoherent, hoping against hope this wasn’t all a figment of his narcotics-addled imagination. 

Hathaway shook his head. “I hoped,” he said, and leant down again, while Lewis’s world rearranged itself all around him.


End file.
